The development of scientific writing : linguistic features and historical context

229 Pages·2008·0.723 MB·English

by  David Banks

Introduction i
The Development of Scientific Writing
Linguistic Features and Historical Context
ii The Development of Scientific Writing
Discussions in Functional Approaches to Language
Series Editors: Christopher Butler, Honorary Professor, University of Wales,
Swansea; Robin P. Fawcett, Emeritus Professor, Cardiff University
Editorial Board: John Bateman (University of Bremen); Joan Bybee (University
ofNew Mexico); Huang Guowen (Sun Yat-sen University); Lachlan Mackenzie
(Free University of Amsterdam); Jim Martin (University of Sydney); Jan Nuyts
(University of Antwerp); Mick Short (Lancaster University); Anna Siewierska
(Lancaster University); Anne-Marie Simon Vandenbergen (Ghent University);
Michael Stubbs (University of Trier); Gordon Tucker (Cardiff University); Robert
van Valin (University of New York at Buffalo)
The books in this series are addressed to university teachers, researchers and
postgraduate students of linguistics – and bright undergraduate readers. The books
are short (normally 150–200 pages) and readable but scholarly. They are all
published in paperback, so ensuring a flow of lively books on central topics in
functional linguistics that are within the financial reach of the intended readership.
The purpose of the series is to meet the need for a forum for discussing theoretical
issues in functional approaches to language that are too large for publication in
journal article form. It also welcomes descriptions of areas of language that are too
large for journal publication – and works that combine both theory and description.
While the series complements Advances in Cognitive Linguistics (also an Equinox
series), it welcomes works that are both functional and oriented to the cognitive
aspects of language use.
Books in this series therefore typically present and evaluate new work in theory or
description or both. But they may also offer a critique of one or more previously
published works of these types. In all cases, however, authors are expected to
survey the relevant alternative approaches, and to say which they see as the most
promising one, and why. Books in this series therefore always give reasons for
preferring one position to another rather than simply describing a position – as in
all good discussions.
Published:
English Tense and Aspect in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar: A Critical
Appraisal and an Alternative, Carl Bache
Forthcoming:
Alternative Architectures for Systemic Functional Linguistics: How do we Choose?,
Robin P. Fawcett
Process Types and Participant Roles in the English Clause: A New Systemic
Functional Approach, Amy Neale
The Structure of Modern Irish: A Functional Account, Brian Nolan
Introduction iii
The Development of Scientific Writing
Linguistic Features and Historical Context
David Banks
iv The Development of Scientific Writing
Published by Equinox Publishing Ltd.
UK: Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies St.,London SW11 2JW
USA: DBBC, 28 Main Street, Oakville, CT 06779
www.equinoxpub.com
First published 2008
© David Banks 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13 978 1 84553 316 8 (hardback)
978 1 84553 317 5 (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Banks, David, 1943-
The development of scientific writing : linguistic features and historical
context / David Bank s
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84553-316-8 (hb)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84553-317-5 (pb)
1. English language—Technical English—History. I. Title.
PE1475.B325 2007
808'.0666—dc22
2007012865
Typeset by S.J.I. Service, New Delhi
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Lightning Source UK Ltd, Milton
Keynes, and LightningSource Inc., La Vergne, TN
Introduction v
Contents
Author’s note vii
Introduction 1
Part 1 From Chaucer to Newton 21
1. Beginning with Chaucer 23
2. Between Chaucer and Newton 37
3. The Royal Society and Newton 53
Part 2 The intervening centuries 77
4. A way forward 79
5. Passives 99
6. First person pronoun subjects 113
7. Nominalisation 123
8. Thematic structure 139
9. The semantic nature of themes 159
An interpersonal cod a 179
By way of a conclusion 195
Notes 201
Appendix 1 203
Appendix 2 205
References 207
Author Index 215
Subject Index 217
vi The Development of Scientific Writing
Introduction vii
Author’s note
No one who writes a book like this does so without creating debts in many
quarters. I am no exception. Hence I would like to thank all those people
who have in some way contributed to the evolution and production of this
book. They are too numerous to be mentioned individually, and I hope those
whose names are not given here will accept my apologies, and my recognition
of the value of their contributions. Nevertheless there are some whom I must
thank more formally: first the Conseil Scientifique of the Université de
Bretagne Occidentale, who granted me a sabbatical semester during which
part of this book was originally drafted; then, those colleagues, most notably
Janet Ormrod and Irina Lord, who commented on earlier drafts and enabled
me to eliminate some inconsistencies, and improve the clarity of the writing;
Janet Joyce, Robin Fawcett, Chris Butler and their team at Equinox for their
helpful advice and encouragement; and, since some parts of this material
were originally presented at various conferences and colloquia, those who
attended the presentations and took part in the discussion which followed
them. To all of these, my grateful thanks.
viii The Development of Scientific Writing
Introduction 1
Introduction
Diachronic study of scientific text
Linguistic interest in scientific writing is frequently dated from Barber’s
seminal article (Barber 1962) of the early 1960s. In this, he considered such
things as sentence length, number of clauses per sentence, verb forms, both
finite (including passive forms) and non-finite, and lexis. Of course, there
had been precursors, such as McDonald’s (1929) English and Science, and
Savory’s (1953) book The Language of Science. McDonald’s book is distinctly
aimed at the practitioner, and even if Savory’s book is of more linguistic
intent, it was Barber’s article that sparked a lasting linguistic interest in the
genre. Interestingly, from our point of view, Savory’s book includes a chapter
on ‘The growth of the language of science’, and even though his remarks are
restricted to questions of lexis, it still shows an awareness that scientific
language is not static, but, like all forms of living language, evolves over time.
It remains a fact, nevertheless, that the vast literature which has built up in
the wake of Barber’s article is basically concerned with contemporary scientific
discourse; so it is synchronic in nature rather than diachronic, and hence,
does not take the development of the language into consideration. This may

be because a great deal of it has been geared to pedagogical interests, notably
that of training non-anglophone scientists to write for publication in English
(Cooke 1993). Recently however, there have been a few excursions into this
area of the diachronic study of scientific writing, which it might be useful to
look at briefly, for they are all in some way different to the sort of study I wish
to present in this book.
Bazerman (1988) is a book many of whose chapters were previously
published as articles. It tends then to deal with a series of separate, though
related, questions. The factor that unites the book is that of the way in which
scientific writing is produced. Several chapters of the book deal with historical
questions, which is why it is of interest here, though this is not the case of all
the chapters in his book. Chapter 3 deals with articles in the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society from 1665 to 1800. Chapter 4 deals with
2 The Development of Scientific Writing
the controversy in which Newton was involved from the publication of his
article ‘A new theory of light and colours’, to that of his book Opticks. Other
chapters which deal with historical matters do so over a rather shorter time-
span and are restricted to the twentieth century. The main thrust of the
bookis to consider the sociological situations in which these discourses were
produced.
Gross (1996) (the first edition appeared in 1990), is interested in the
rhetoric of science. The focus of the book is therefore on the argumentation,
and the language, as encoded, is of interest only insofar as it reveals the
argumentation being used. It is historical in that it looks at a number of non-
contemporary texts, but these are looked at in isolation, and not in terms of
historical development. Thus Watson and Crick appear in Chapter 4,
Copernicus in Chapter 7, Newton in Chapter 8, and Darwin in Chapter 10.
These are dealt with individually, and the fact that Copernicus did not write
in English is not pertinent to Gross’ objectives. Indeed, all quotations from
Copernicus and other writers who wrote in languages other than English are
given in English translation, underlining the fact that the way the language
is encoded is immaterial to the points he wants to make.
Atkinson (1999) deals with a single, but extremely important scientific
journal, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, already referred
to in relation to Bazerman’s book. This is the longest running scientific journal,
for with the exception of the years 1679–1683, when it was replaced by the
Philosophical Collections, it has been published continuously since its
inception in 1665. Atkinson’s approach is historical and he deals with the
extensive period of 1675–1975. Since a large section of this book will also
deal with the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, over the similar
period of 1700–1980, it would seem that there might be much in common
between Atkinson (1999) and the present book. However, the bent of

Atkinson’s book is rhetorical (like Gross 1996) and sociological. Hence, he is
interested, like Gross, in what is said, rather than how it is said, and how that
fits into the sociological context of the time. I feel that the second of these, as
will become evident, is of great importance, but the way things are said, the
way discourse is encoded in language, is, for me, also of vital importance.
Valle (1999) is in some ways similar to Atkinson (1999). She also considers
the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society over the period 1665–
1965. Her study is more restrictive, in that it deals only with the life sciences.
Once again, its objective is more sociological, in that she is concerned with
the establishment of a discourse community, and the texts are useful in that
context.